So, what makes a terrorist?

Princeton University professor has some surprising answers in new book

By: Nick Norlen
   The revelation that last month’s attempted car bomb attacks in London and Glasgow were perpetrated by several physicians came as a shock to many.
   But not to Alan Krueger.
   The Bendheim Professor of Economics and Public Policy at Princeton University and an advisor to the National Counterterrorism Center, Professor Krueger recently completed "What Makes a Terrorist: Economics and the Roots of Terrorism," a book to be released Sept. 12.
   In it, he writes that "the popular explanations for terrorism — poverty, lack of education, or the catchall ‘they hate our way of life and freedom’ — simply have no empirical basis."
   Instead, Professor Krueger uses what he says is overwhelming statistical data to assert that the majority of those who participate in terrorist acts are neither destitute nor lacking in education.
   That trend emerged after he compiled facts about the backgrounds of terrorists from various sources and compared them to average characteristics of citizens from their home countries.
   In an interview Thursday, Professor Krueger talked about how he came to his titular question — and the implications of the answers his book presents.
   "A very naive view is that people attack us because they’re destitute, that that makes them more likely to join a radical cause," he said. "That argument can easily be rejected by the data."
   "Yet," he writes, "the claim that poverty is the root cause of terrorism continues to be made."
   While the origins of that myth are less clear than the sources of its continuation — politicians and the media, he argues — Professor Krueger said he believes it’s "self-perpetuated."
   "We know that we’re much wealthier than the rest of the world," he said. "It’s not that big of a leap."
   But such a notion "ignores an important part of the question — what these people are attempting through their actions," he said.
   Rather than drawing parallels to crime, Professor Krueger looked to the characteristics of voters for what he said is a better analogy.
   Like people who consistently vote, terrorists feel they have an informed position with which they can make a political impact, he said.
   Conversely, people with little education may feel less qualified to engage in the political process, and those with little income likely have more parochial concerns.
   "If poverty and inadequate education were causes of terrorism, even minor ones, the world would be teeming with terrorists eager to destroy our way of life," he writes.
   And while he acknowledged that many still hold fast to that notion, Professor Krueger insists that "terrorism is pretty rare."
   To illustrate that potentially controversial point, Professor Krueger includes a table in his book charting the probability of certain causes of death for the U.S. population.
   With a lifetime risk of 1 in 69,000, terrorism is less likely to lead to the death of the average American than, among other things, accidental electrocution (1 in 4,000), a lightning strike (1 in 39,000), or a commercial aircraft accident (1 in 40,000).
   Professor Krueger said the inclusion of such statistics, as well as the book’s main intent, was an attempt to "demystify" terrorism — "to make it seem less … unpredictable, imminent, to try to reduce the terrifying aspect out of it."
   He added, "We base too much of policy on gut feelings and not enough on dispassionate analysis."
   But because outliers exist — perpetrators of terrorism in Northern Ireland tend to come from less advantaged families — Professor Krueger acknowledged the data can’t be seen as a compilation of a foolproof profile.
   "The data can give you clues, but you still have to be vigilant," he said. "I think that the terrorist organizations are adept at randomizing their strategy."
   Nevertheless, he said data can and should be used to "derive the best policy that we can" — "guard against the types of terrorist attacks that are most threatening to us."
   And while the hope is to separate verifiable data from anecdotes, he said the research is ultimately about people’s lives, not numbers — a perspective evidenced in his dedication of the book "to the memory of Pat Tillman," the former professional football player who joined the military and was killed by friendly fire in Afghanistan.
   Now that the information is there, the next challenge is "distilling it to the public — putting it in a context they should understand," Professor Krueger said.
   "I am hoping that what’s presented in the book will encourage more people to study terrorism in a more analytical way," he said. "The terrorists can only succeed by causing us to be irrational."